Nutsedge vs Crabgrass: What’s the Difference?

August 17, 2017

Do you have a pesky weed ruining the uniformity of your lush lawn, littering the cracks in your sidewalks, and taking away from your pristine flower bed? That green sprout might be nutsedge or crabgrass. If you want to eradicate the unsightly plant, the first thing you should do is identify it. Here are some differences:

Identifying Nutsedge vs Crabgrass

Nutsedge

Nutsedge is a perennial, grass-like lawn weed. Even though it’s sometimes referred to as nutgrass, it’s not a grass—it’s a sedge (a flowering plant to resembles grass). It looks like grass until it grows tall enough to sprout a seed head. It also has a triangular shape.

Crabgrass

Unlike nutsedge, crabgrass is an annual plant. Digitaria (the plant’s botanical name) is a warm-season weed and will show up late-spring through summer in most areas. It reproduces by seeds that are grown the season before. It looks like a mini corn plant when first sprouting.

How to Get Rid of Nutsedge and Crabgrass

Nutsedge

Mow your grass at the right height. This tends to be the first or second highest setting on your mower.

Apply herbicide in the beginning of summer.

Active plants die off after the first frost, so if you’re patient, they will go away on their own. Try again next season!

Crabgrass

Apply herbicide before you see any sign of the unsightly weed. The ideal time is when your soil temperature reaches 55 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit; that’s when the first seeds will germinate.

Get Rid of Weeds With Our Help

The best way to prevent a lawn full of weeds is to be proactive and vigilant. The lawn care technicians at Green Lawn Fertilizing are dedicated to giving our clients weed-free lawns with our lawn care programs. Call us today at 888-581-5296 for a free estimate. In the meantime, learn more about specific types of weeds in our handy lawn weed library.

These plants are remarkably vigorous, tolerant, and fast growing — too bad they also are unwanted. Learn the weeds most familiar to lawns in this area, the conditions that sustain them, and techniques to control them.